The only suspect in the mass murder of 4 people in La Palma del Recreo de Cutris, in San Carlos, is believed to have fled to his Nicaragua where he had worked as a police official.
On Monday, the Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ), announced that it had sent to the Nicaragua National Police information about their suspect, a 45-year-old man surnamed Pérez González, with the intention to look for him, arrest him and be try him for the crime committed in Costa Rica.
In Costa Rica, Pérez worked as a farm laborer – peón in Spanish – including, three weeks ago, when he worked with one of the victims.
The Nicaraguan national is alleged to have murdered Jesús Álvarez López, 39; his son, Daniel Álvarez Sequeira, 23, and 19-year-old Freddy Rivas Sequeira, 19. All three were Nicaraguan nationals, the elder Alvarez the father of the 13-year-old girl who gave birth to a son fathered by Pérez.
The fourth victim was Juan Roberto de la Trinidad Méndez Koschny, 57, a Costa Rican, who was the foreman of the farm.
Walter Espinoza, head of the OIJ, explained the father and son had been shot in the head, while Rivas has stabbed in the abdomen 11 times; Mendez has no visible injuries, but it is believed that he die due to a blow to the head and then drowned in the ravine.
The motive for the mass murder is believed to be a family conflict, the senior Alvarez did not approve of the relationship Pérez had with his daughter, who, with her son, is also in Costa Rica. Authorities believe Pérez had planned to bring his girl and infant son back to Costa Rica.
The trigger
Espinoza explained that there had been an apparent quarrel between Mendez and Perez that would have been the trigger for the mass murders, which was discovered on Friday but presumed to have occurred Wednesday night.
“Initially, personal problems of a financial nature and of a personal nature would be the motive for the events,” said Espinoza.
The OIJ chief said that, apparently, three weeks ago the suspect and Méndez had a difference of opinion over wages.
However, apparently, Perez could also have been upset because in Cutris, a small rural community near the Nicaragua border, it was rumored that a four-month-old baby born to a 13-year-old girl, with whom Perez had an improper relationship, could be fathered by Méndez and not him.
Likewise, the suspect became enraged with Jesús Álvarez, the girl’s father, who decided to move her to Costa Rica, where she lived with relatives and was in enrolled in third grade.
Espinoza said that they have not been able to talk with the young girl, who has been in the country for the last two month, but that she could also be a victim (of rape).
Some neighbors, who preferred to keep their identity hidden, assured that the minor is pregnant again.
Quick justice
More than one Nicaraguan has committed atrocious acts in Costa Rica and fled back across the border.
In July 2016, Adrián Salmerón Silva was sentenced to 183 years in prison in Nicaragua for massacring a family on February 14 of that year in Matapalo de Santa Cruz, Guanacaste.
Salmerón was arrested and tried in Nicaragua, where he admitted to killing Yeimmy Jéssica Durán Guerra, 38, and Dirk Beauchamp, 57, as well as the children of the couple, aged 6, 8 and 12. Salmerón admitted raping the 12-year-old before killing her.
Despite the high penalty, he will only serve out30 years in prison, which is the maximum penalty in that Nicaragua.
In Costa Rica, it’s 50 years in prison.
Nicaragua’s Constitution prohibits the extradition of its nationals, however, it will try, within months of arrest, its citizens for crimes committed beyond its borders.
In Costa Rica, the trial process would take years.